‘I beat the clot and I can do this’

Ellie Brady had a pulmonary embolism in February. Three months later she will be running a relay race leg in the Vermont City Marathon. She is seen with a scan showing the embolism in Burlington on Wednesday.(Photo: GLENN RUSSELL/FREE PRESS)Buy Photo

With her daughter moving out of the house and facing the prospect of an empty nest, Ellie Brady wanted to make a life change. She decided to give running a try.

Ten years later, three marathons and countless other races behind her, that decision saved her life.

The 50-year-old suffered a pulmonary embolism in February of this year when a blood clot broke off and traveled to her right lung, cutting off the blood supply, and later spread to her left lung. And yet a little more than three months later, Brady will run a leg of the People’s United Bank Vermont City Marathon on Sunday as part of a five-person relay team.

“They all think I am nuts,” Brady said. “It’s a terrible and wonderful thing, all at the same time.”

Preparing to run the Unplugged Half Marathon in Colchester and, later, the VCM as part of a two-man relay team, Brady set out on a nine-mile training session in February with friends. After the run, experiencing extreme shortness of breath, the South Burlington resident knew something was wrong.

“That happened on a Sunday and the rest of the week I was just wiped out,” Brady said. “I couldn’t do my strength training, I couldn’t do the rest of my training runs.

Brady began to really worry when intense back pain and chills compounded the fatigue and shortness of breath that she had experienced for almost a week. The situation eventually pushed her to the emergency room.

“It had gotten to the point when my blood pressure was sky-rocketing high, my pulse ox was really low,” Brady said. “It was evident at that point that I was in trouble.”

Arrow points to blood clot that was in Ellie Brady’s right lung.(Photo: Courtesy)

It was in the ER where doctors finally figured out that the otherwise healthy woman had a pulmonary embolism. The large clot had likely broken off during her training run and become lodged in her respiratory system. Feeding off of the blood circulation, the clot continued to grow. It cut off blood flow and killed the lung tissue, according to Brady.

“My heart was under extreme pressure during this whole thing, so the strength of my heart from running helped save my life,” Brady said. “Doctors and ER nurses said the size, strength and power of my lungs and heart helped save my life. With a less capable set of lungs and heart, it might have not had such a good outcome.

“When I was in the ER, it was really evident by the look of surprise on people’s faces that I was alive.”

During a three-day stay in the hospital, Brady fretted over when she would be able to run again while doctors focused on her health. She left the hospital on blood thinners to keep the clot from getting bigger and under strict instructions to walk only.

But weeks later, with a doctor’s blessing, Brady began to run. Her doctor told her to listen to her body and warned she would tire easily, but the longtime runner got back on the bike path.

“It was amazing, it was just like, ‘I beat the clot and I can do this,’” Brady said. “I just lived through a near-death experience ...and I can do anything.”

Between the diagnosis and the marching orders to take it easy, Brady had given up on participating in this year’s Vermont City Marathon. But a chance encounter with Jess Cover, RunVermont’s director of marketing and communications, resurrected her hope to hit the annual Burlington race.

“I ran into her and I told her what had happened. She didn’t even skip a beat,” Brady said.

When Brady said she had to get rid of her half-marathon place, Cover countered by offering her a five-person relay team.

So Brady approached her co-workers at the Animal Hospital of Hinesburg, where she works as a receptionist, and quickly filled a team called “The Beat Goes On.”

“Ellie is a very optimistic person,” said Rich Armstrong, a veterinarian at the Animal Hospital of Hinesburg and one of Brady’s teammates for Sunday’s marathon. “She just was motivated to get back on the horse. We will tough it out one way or the other and get her across that finish line.”

Initially, Brady just planned to walk her leg of the race but now she plans to run the entire five-mile leg that will take her across the finish line at Waterfront Park.